Moot Court: First Round

Not bad at all. The opposing counsel on Miranda was asked to recite the facts and she ended up taking nearly three minutes reciting the facts from her notes before one of the judges interrupted her and made her jump into her argument. She actually did really well save for the fact that she relied way too much on her notes. She didn't make nearly enough eye contact as she kept her eyes on her notes and basically talked to them. Her partner wasn't quite as sharp and also relied on her notes too much. But she did well too because she knew her position really well. Also, both of them made the mistake of bringing too many notes to the lectern and not making eye contact with all three judges to make sure they were ready for the presentation.

Peters was damn near perfect. Didn't get fazed, answered tough questions that Prof. Sullivan said he thought he wouldn't be able to answer and did so persuasively, he was calm throughout and sounded intelligent. He did so well that one of the judges tried to trip him up at the end by asking him a statutory rape question. He didn't respond well to that but that was the only question that got him. The only real complaint from two of the judges is that he seemed to dispassionate. Sounded boring to me but he was by far the best in the room at the time.

As for myself, I was a bit more nervous than I thought I would be partially because I had to follow Peters performance. They gave me tips on how to handle questions that I don't understand - rather than asking the judge to clarify, I should have said tried to steer the discussion by saying something like, "I understand your question to mean this... and this is the answer to that question" - and what to do with my hands because apparently I was gripping the lectern too tightly. I was gripping the lectern tightly because Prof. Legal Writing had made me aware of my hand gestures.

After it was all said and done they told everyone they did well and should definitely do the third round but that's what they tell everyone. I still don't intend to do the third round.